• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Monday, February 6, 2023
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Dont Miss

Afghan Government Tightens the Noose Around Medicine Smugglers

Shadi Khan Saif by Shadi Khan Saif
11/09/17
in Dont Miss, Featured, Middle East
Medicine in Afghanistan

Medication on display in Nangarhar, Afghanistan. Photo: Gustavo Montes de Oca/Flickr

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

KABUL, Afghanistan – Heavily relying on imported medicine worth millions every year, Afghanistan has suspended licenses of more than 800 medicine importing firms on charges of smuggling and counterfeiting triggering price hikes and uncertainty.

On October 29, Noor Shah Kamawal, director of the National Medicine and Health Product Regulatory Authority, announced that the licenses of some 817 local and 113 foreign medicine import companies have been cancelled on charges of smuggling and counterfeiting.

“These companies were continuously violating the rules and regulations for quite some time now, they have now been given one month time to stop these violations and share their documents with us for evaluation and an ultimate decision,” he said.

The agency did not reveal the identity of the firms blacklisted in the wake of an ongoing campaign.

Obaid Ullah, a local medicine trader in Kabul, told The Globe Post that many genuine importers are now feeling the heat of tightened government control over the sector.

“There wasn’t much control for so many years that led to the mushrooming of all sorts of importers, but now with this sudden tightening some opportunists at the wholesale and retail levels are once again exploiting the vulnerabilities of the people by inflating the prices on one pretext or the other.”

Mr. Kamawal acknowledges that there is a problem with the sale of counterfeit medicine and inflated prices. He told the press in Kabul that in addition to the crackdown on importers, the agency is also looking into the affairs of some 14,500 registered pharmacies across the country.

In a week’s time, Afghan officials seized more than 100 tonnes of expired, counterfeit and substandard medicine from different pharmacies.

While waiting for his turn at a bustling Kabul pharmacy in the Deh Afghanan area, Shad Mohammad, a resident of the southeastern Paktika province, said his wife was diagnosed with some sort of infection, but repeated doses of antibiotic did not help cure her disease. “I was in Dubai for my job and came back urgently to bring her to Kabul for treatment”, he told The Globe Post, adding that the bulk of medicine at pharmacies in Paktika are expired, but no one seems to care.

“People can’t literally read the date, most of them get medicine from the medical stores without a doctor’s prescription, it is horrifying, and here in Kabul prices are much higher.”

Every year, Afghans consumes imported medicine worth around $300 million. According to the Ministry of Public Health, most of the drugs come from Pakistan, Iran, India, Turkey, and Bangladesh. More than 1,100 pharmacy firms registered with the government are involved in drug imports.

According to a study by the international charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), medicine is a lucrative business for private providers in Afghanistan, and some elements of the private medical sector can be quite unscrupulous.

“While people regularly chose private as the option of quality, many spoke of overprescribing, misdiagnosing and even malpractice from the side of the private practitioners that they visited,” MSF noted in a 2004 report.

The medicine importers’ union in Afghanistan has cautiously welcomed the new regulations. Abdul Khaliq, head of the union told The Globe Post that a “mafia” has dominated government contracts and ministries for many years. “The value of medicine imported illegally is worth $700 million every year,” he said.

Rages of war in the decades since the 1979 invasion of the country by the former Soviet Union have dismantled the public health system in Afghanistan.

The recent relative peace, however, has opened some avenues both in the public and private sector with a number of clinics, pharmacies and dispensaries popping up across the country, particularly in urban areas. But weak or nonexistent regulations have caused serious irregularities in the health sector in rural places as well as a handful of urban centers.

Khan Jan Alakozay, vice president of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries, agrees that the short-term impacts of imposing a ban on so many firms could cause a shortage of medicine, but ultimately the way would be paved for genuine drugs.

“War, lack of investors’ confidence, energy and infrastructure issues are hindering establishment of medicine producing companies in Afghanistan leaving us vulnerable and dependent on others,” he said.

ShareTweet
Shadi Khan Saif

Shadi Khan Saif

Related Posts

Taliban fighters
Featured

UN Expert Decries ‘Systematic’ Attacks on Afghan Shiites

by Staff Writer
September 12, 2022
Afghan refugees
Featured

Pakistani Migrants in Afghanistan Caught in Quake No-Man’s Land

by Staff Writer
June 27, 2022
Afghanistan
Middle East

Taliban Vows in Geneva Talks to Protect Aid Workers: NGO

by Staff Writer
February 11, 2022
Afghan women
Middle East

Afghan Women Activists Say They Feel Betrayed by Oslo Talks

by Staff Writer
January 24, 2022
Afghan women protest
Middle East

Afghan Women Protest Against Taliban Killings of Ex-Soldiers

by Staff Writer
December 28, 2021
Afghanistan drone strike
National

No US Troops to Be Punished Over Deadly Kabul Drone Strike

by Staff Writer
December 14, 2021
Next Post
Syria announced at the COP23 meeting in November 2017 that it would back the Paris agreement to slow climate change

Syria Will Sign the Paris Climate Deal, Leaving the US Alone in Opposition

nikki haley

US Accuses Iran of Supplying Missiles to Yemen

Recommended

Syrian rescuers and civilians search for victims and survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building, in the rebel-held northern countryside of Syria's Idlib province on the border with Turkey, early on February 6, 2023. Syrian rescuers (White Helmets) and civilians search for victims and survivors amid the rubble of a collapsed building

Quake Kills Over 1,200 Across Turkey, Syria

February 6, 2023
Protesters rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols, outside of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in Detroit, Michigan, on January 27, 2023

How Do Violent ‘Monsters’ Take Root?

February 3, 2023
A supporter of nurses' strike and NHS holds a placard

UK Faces Fresh Mass Strikes as Wage Talks Derail

February 1, 2023
Israeli security forces in Jerusalem

Palestinian Gunman Kills 7 in East Jerusalem Synagogue Attack

January 30, 2023
The Doomsday Clock reads 100 seconds to midnight, a decision made by The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, during an announcement at the National Press Club in Washington, DC on January 23, 2020

‘Doomsday Clock’ Moves Closest Ever to Midnight

January 25, 2023
Police work near the scene of a mass shooting in Monterey Park, California

California Lunar New Year Mass Shooter Dead, Motive Unclear: Police

January 23, 2023

Opinion

Protesters rally against the fatal police assault of Tyre Nichols, outside of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center in Detroit, Michigan, on January 27, 2023

How Do Violent ‘Monsters’ Take Root?

February 3, 2023
George Santos from the 3rd Congressional district of New York

George Santos for Speaker!

January 16, 2023
Commuters waiting for buses in Metro Manila. Philippines

Eight Billion and Counting…

November 29, 2022
Mahsa Amini protests

Imagining a Free Iran

October 24, 2022
Vladimir Putin

How 18th Century International Law Clarifies the Situation in Ukraine

September 29, 2022
Vladimir Putin

Falling for Putin

September 15, 2022
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post